I forced a deep breath, trying to shake the alleyway from my head. I thought about another smoke, but there wasn’t much point. I knew I couldn’t relax no matter how long I stalked the parking lot or how many cigarettes I smoked. I chewed the inside of my cheek, biting down until it hurt, and tried to clear my head but I kept seeing my sister, this time as a tiny, happy, innocent girl in a bright yellow dress, riding a carousel pony with her father. What the fuck was I doing out here, holding my dick in a parking lot?
I figured I still had close to an hour. I could get there and back and still meet Julia for lunch without her ever knowing the difference.
I PARKED THE CAR across the street from the deli and ducked into Joyce’s for a quick double Jameson. The bartender, thankfully not Joyce, shook his head as I slammed the shot back, slammed my money down, and walked back out the door. The whiskey went down hard. I lit a cigarette and laid hot smoke over the whiskey-burn in my throat. My head cleared and my nerves stilled. I slipped my shades over my eyes and jogged across the street through a break in the traffic.
I sat in the car for a while, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to work out how to play it inside the deli. As a teenager, I’d been in that deli almost every day. Buying a paper and coffee before school, maybe cigarettes, playing video games after. Buying beer with a pathetic fake ID on weekend nights. Just another one of the neighborhood kids. But that was years ago; nobody in there would know me now. If I was going to do any better than Waters and Purvis, I would have to come strong. Strong enough that whoever I turned up would tell me what they knew.
I was out of the car and waiting to cross the street when a tall, skinny kid, maybe eighteen or nineteen, greasy black hair down to his shoulders, backed out of the deli’s front door. He held a bucket heavy with water in one hand and clutched a long-handled brush in the other. Tucked under one arm was a bottle of bleach. I knew he was out there to finish the job he’d begun the day before. I started across the street but the blare of a car horn backed me up against my car. A sharp pain in my chest shortened my breath as my heart punched my rib cage. That was new.
Pinned against my car, waiting for a break in the traffic, I watched the kid set everything down and rummage through his apron pockets. He pulled out a cell phone and a pack of cigarettes. He lit up and started a call, leaning against the storefront, constantly glancing at the door while he talked, hitting the cigarette often, in quick, nervous puffs. After a few minutes, he closed the phone and dropped it back in his apron. Grinning, he tossed his smoke daintily into the middle of the sidewalk in front of him. The light on the corner turned red and the traffic slowed in front of me. The kid stepped forward and crushed out his cigarette in my father’s blood.
I darted through the cars, trying to remember what I’d come there to do. The kid bent to pick up the bottle of bleach. I was on him before he got the cap off, my toes almost meeting his, my heels in my father’s blood. He dropped the bottle. It hit the concrete with a dull thump, rolled to the corner, off the curb, and settled in the gutter.
I pushed past him, bumping him with my shoulder, and walked to the corner, turning once to make sure he didn’t bolt for the door. With him watching, I picked up the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and poured the bleach into the gutter, the scent of it stinging my nose as it rose from the street. The sting turned up the humming behind my eyes.
“Yo,” he finally said, “what the fuck?”
I spiked the bottle in the street and walked back over to him. His eyes danced as they searched my face, looking for a reason for my behavior. I felt disinclined to give him one. I stood as close as I could to him without us touching.
“Pick that up,” I said, pointing at the cigarette butt but staring at him.
“What are you? Some kind of fucking clean freak?” He waved a hand over the dozens of crushed-out butts on the sidewalk and in the street. He backed up a step. “What’s the difference? You got a problem with it, you pick it up. Get the rest of ’em while you’re at it. Save me some work.” He turned to pick up his brush. “Fucking weirdo.”
I shoved him into the storefront window. The glass boomed and shook on impact. He yelled and his hands flew up in front of his face. I smacked them out of the way and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt.
“What’s that stain on the sidewalk, shithead?” I asked, breathing in his face. “You work yesterday? What is it? Tell me what it is.”
He wouldn’t look at me, but I saw the recognition, the pieces start to come together in his face. “Blood.”
A young girl, a plumper, prettier version of the guy I was about to throttle, stuck her head out the door. “Vito, what’s goin’ on out here?” She gave me a hard stare. I let Vito go. “Everything all right?” the girl asked. “I need to call somebody?”
Vito nodded. “Yeah, yeah, Angie. I mean no, no, I’m fine, don’t call nobody.”
“What’d you do now, Vito?” Angie asked.
“Nothin’,” he said. “Go the fuck back inside, Angie. Now.”
She did, swearing in Italian, at me or at Vito or at both of us, under her breath.
“That your sister?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Fucking puttana busybody.”
I smacked his face. “Don’t ever talk to or about your sister like that ever again.” Vito stared at me, utterly confused. I raised my hand, as if to hit him again. “Capeesh?”
“Yeah, whatever. Who the fuck are you?”
“Whose blood is that?” I asked. I took out my cigarettes, shook out one for each of us. I felt completely relaxed.
“Some guy,” he said. “Some guy got shot out here yesterday.”
“What was his name?”
“I don’t know, man,” he whined. “I wasn’t even here yesterday. My old man just told me to clean it up today, after the rush. He didn’t tell me nothin’ else about it. Just that a guy got shot.”
“You ask about it?”
The kid shrugged, lighting the smoke I’d given him. “No. I mean, I didn’t think to—”
I smacked the cigarette out of his mouth.
“Jesus. Fuck.” His hand came away from his mouth with a little blood on his fingertips. “Whadda you fucking want?! Jesus.” People walked past us without hesitation. No one looked over from their cars, just a few feet away.
“So somebody gets shot in front of your store,” I said, sliding my arm across Vito’s shoulders, “and you don’t ask any questions? Somebody dies out here, and you’re crushing out your cigarettes in his blood the next fucking day like it’s fucking nothin’? And you never even ask his name?”
“I’m sorry, I just . . . it’s just habit, with the cigarette. I didn’t mean nothing—”
“Anybody here today who worked yesterday?” I asked, my lips close to his ear. “Your old man inside?”
“No. He left a while ago. He ain’t coming back today.” Vito squirmed under my arm, but he didn’t try slipping away. “I don’t know who worked yesterday. I ain’t here on weekends.”
I bent down and picked up Vito’s still-burning cigarette. I handed it to him. “That guy who got shot? He’s got a beautiful daughter with a broken heart, prick that he was. Maybe you should show some respect. Maybe you should find out who worked yesterday. Maybe you should ask your old man some questions.” I backed away a few steps. “I’m comin’ back to talk to you again.”
“Why don’t you just talk to the cops?” Vito asked. “Whatta you buggin’ me for? I don’t know nothing.”
Turning, I stepped between two parked cars. As I waited for a break in the traffic, I felt Vito walk up behind me. I didn’t turn around. “Who are you?” he asked. “You a collector?”
“Fuck, no,” I said.
“You that girl’s boyfriend or something?”
“I’m her brother.”
Sick of waiting, I walked out into the street, cars in both directions slamming on their brakes.
WHEN I GOT BACK INTO the Mall, I headed straight for the escalator. I s
tared at my feet on the way up, taking deep breaths, hoping I hadn’t kept Julia waiting. There wasn’t any need, I thought, for her to know where I’d been or what I’d been doing. It wouldn’t do anything but upset her, and I hadn’t learned anything she’d want to know.
I spied a coffee stand as I approached the food court. Some cheap imitation of a Starbucks with a pimpled kid in a blue apron behind the counter. He poured my coffee and made my change without a single word. I took the lid off and sipped, burning my tongue. It hurt but the coffee felt great going down. I needed a cigarette and a shot of whiskey to get the maximum benefit, but I felt myself settling down, felt like maybe I could eat. I spotted an empty table next to a plastic tree and sat down to wait for Julia. I was halfway through the coffee when she appeared, shopping bags swinging from her fingers.
“I must look horrible,” she said as she sat. “The way you’re looking at me.” Most of her makeup was gone and her eyes were swollen.
“Not horrible,” I said. “It’s just, I can tell you’ve been crying.”
She looked around, shrugged her shoulders. “Oh well. Like I’ve never been caught crying in public before.”
“I should’ve stayed with you,” I said.
“So you could hand me tissues?” she asked. “I did most of it in the dressing room anyway. Nah. It did me good, just walking around, taking care of some business. It helped, just knowing you’d be waiting for me.” She checked out our choices for lunch. “Whadda you think? Chinese? Pizza? Mickey D’s?”
“Whatever,” I said. Maybe I’d just have another cup of coffee.
“I’m feeling Chinese,” she said.
“Funny, you don’t look Chinese,” I said. Julia smiled at me. “Works for me,” I said. “Surprise me. I trust your judgment.”
She came back with a plate of shrimp lo mein and two egg rolls for me, two tiny spring rolls for her. I knew she’d only eat one, but I didn’t say anything about it. I’d let her eat my fortune cookie.
I had polished off my lo mein and half an egg roll when my sister kicked me under the table. I ignored her. She kicked me again and finally I looked up. The shock on her face made my heart skip. She pointed across the Mall, through the crowd. It took me a minute. I didn’t know what I was looking for. But then I spotted her. Tall, long red hair, black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Leather pants, right arm sleeved down to the wrist with an elaborate tattoo. She sure held my attention. For all kinds of reasons.
“Is that who I think it is?” Julia finally said.
I stood and watched the redhead walk. There was the right kind of sway to her hips. She stopped to look in a store window, turned to talk to a friend. It was her, all right. I stared, my heart doing flips and my stomach at my knees, hoping she wouldn’t glance over and see me. I sat back down, still staring in the direction she’d disappeared.
“Virginia.” I looked down at my half-eaten egg roll. I’d lost my appetite.
“I thought so,” Julia said, laughing. “Junior, the look on your face was priceless. I wish I had a picture of that face to show all your friends down at the tough-guy club.”
Julia surprised me by biting into her second spring roll. “Talked to her lately?”
“Who?”
“Virginia, duh.”
“I haven’t talked to her in months,” I said. “Haven’t had anything to do with her since we split.” I rolled my egg roll in a puddle of duck sauce. It was almost the truth.
“You’re a liar, Junior.”
“What’re you talking about?” I asked.
“Wasn’t her birthday not long ago?” Julia asked. She was pushing me now and it was about to make me irritable. Which she knew. And she was doing it anyway.
“Yeah. March.”
“What’d you do for it?”
“Nothin’.”
“You’re lying again.”
I started to protest but then it hit me. I remembered. It was probably true that I should call my sister more often. It was definitely true that I had to stop calling her when I was drunk. When I did that, I talked too much. I strained to remember how much I’d given up. Probably everything.
“So I sent her some roses,” I said. “Big deal.”
Julia set her plastic fork down on her plastic plate. I couldn’t tell if she was shocked, pleased, or pissed. Shit. She hadn’t known.
“Not bad,” she said. “To her house?”
“No,” I said. Virginia had never bothered to tell me where she went after she moved out. “I sent them to her shop. I even had them put my name on the card.”
“And she accepted them?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’m confused,” Julia said. “She didn’t call you? Say thanks?”
“She called when she knew I’d be at work. She mentioned that she didn’t work at the tattoo parlor anymore.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out. It wasn’t big fun explaining it. It was embarrassing, in fact, revealing how Virginia and I had yet again, even apart, turned a simple gesture into a duel of hidden agendas. I guess it didn’t help that I knew damn well she didn’t like roses.
“She never specifically said anything about the flowers,” I said, “but I figured with the timing of the call, she at least heard about them.”
“Where’s she working now?” Julia asked.
“She didn’t say.”
Julia picked apart her spring roll, separating the contents into tiny piles. “You told me she loved that shop, that she was going to buy into it for good.”
“I guess the way she felt didn’t last,” I said, growing irritated with lingering on the subject. “It’s been known to happen with her.”
My sister looked away and then back at me. Christ, I thought she was gonna cry.
“The flowers, it was no big deal,” I said. “Just a spur-of-the-momentthing. It was her thirtieth, only happens once in your life. The phone call was more than I expected. Overall, it was probably a bad idea. It certainly didn’t accomplish anything.”
That was the truth. My intentions hadn’t been entirely honor-able when I sent the flowers. I did care about her birthday, but I had sent the flowers, at least in part, to prove I missed her so little I could do such things casually, with utter disregard for any implications. In return, she’d let me know she’d gotten them, just to make sure I knew she didn’t care, either. And to remind me she could find me, but that I couldn’t find her. The whole dumb exchange was Virginia and me in a nutshell. We’d gotten so close we could lie to each other without even speaking.
“None of it’s a big deal,” I said. “The flowers, the breakup, none of it. I’m over it, all of it.”
“I’ll never understand you,” Julia said. “You don’t make any sense.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but you love me anyway.”
Julia stood and gathered her packages. “That I do.”
I searched my jacket pockets for my cigarettes. “Wish you could’ve taught that to Virginia.”
Fresh Kills Page 10
